I revised and re-published a story that was originally part of an Entangled anthology, Along Came a Spider on June 27th!
I began writing the next Montana Bounty Hunters: We Are Dead Horse, MT — Jackson!
I settled on the theme for the next Boys Behaving Badly Anthology — Secret Identities!
I completed 3 editing projects for other authors in June.
Health-related:
I’ve been swimming almost every day. Sometimes, twice a day.
Through medicines and some diet tweaking, I’ve managed to get my blood pressure down. Not enough, and not without an occasional spike, but it’s so much better.
Happiness-related:
I have been working on and making great progress organizing my art room, getting ready for the next push for art shows and reopening my Etsy store.
I finished #the100dayproject online art challenge! Here are some of my last pieces I completed in the beginning of June…
July
For work-related, I plan:
To complete writing and publish Jackson, the next in my Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT series which releases on July 11th!
To complete 4 editing projects in July!
For health related, I plan:
To swim at least once a day!
To resume counting those points for my Weight Watchers diet and hopefully shed at least 5 pounds, remembering, as always: Slow is good!
To continue to reduce salt, processed food, and incorporate foods good for blood pressure (spinach, broccoli, bananas, red wine).
To begin walking and counting my steps.
To do more housework because my art room isn’t finished! Cleaning is exercise, too.
For happiness-related, I plan:
To spend quality time with the family—movie nights, swim-time, making fun meals together!
To participate in and complete a free art workshop, the Fodder Challenge 2023!
Contest
Comment on anything you’ve read in this post. Tell me what you’re doing to make yourself happier and healthier. Tell me what you plan to read in July… Like I said, comment on anything for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
My dd complained when making this little meme for me. She said there are too many covers. “It’s crowded.” Like that’s a bad thing. 🤷
My problem is…and I don’t consider it a problem…is that I don’t want to leave Dead Horse, MT. I don’t want to leave behind my team or the townspeople. I did that with the Bear Lodge hunters, but also found ways to bring them into this series, because I don’t want to let go. I’ll have to admit, I’ve never had so much fun writing a series. So much so, that I’m trying to figure out ways to stay in Dead Horse, MT, even after I’ve completely filled the agency with hunters. Proof? Hard Knox will be a spin-off, featuring the townsfolk!
And it’s not like I had the Dead Horse hunters’ stories planned out ahead of time. No master plan. I just wrote, and as characters popped up, I had my next hero. Not so with the next stories I’ll be writing, Mica and Jackson. With those two, I’m starting with just these images. I don’t know how they’ll meet and join my merry band of bounty hunters. Not yet, anyway.
You haven’t read all the Dead Horse, MT, stories? Give one a try: Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT Have you pre-ordered Mica and Jackson? If not, click on the covers to do so!
Contest
Have fun with this! Wrong answers, even very wrong answers, count!
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me what you think Mica and Jackson should be about. Who are they? What sort of adventures should they have?
Another month gone! 2022 is flying! This month, the kids go back to school and my weekdays will be quieter. Soon, twice daily swims will be reduced to one as the water cools. 🙁 But there’s the string of lovely holidays coming with fall, so I won’t be sad for long…
July
Here’s what I managed to accomplish…
Work-related:
I completed writing and published Gabriel, Book #7 in my MBH: Dead Horse, MT, series. Fig finally got her man!
I completed 2 editing projects for other authors in July.
Health-related:
I have not climbed back aboard the Weight Watchers wagon. However, I maintained 25 pounds of my loss since January. Motivation is still lagging…
As for physical activity, I’ve upped my steps and make multiple trips up and down the stairs! I’m swimming at least once a day, usually twice.
I visited the dermatologist this month. I had a spot of skin cancer in the past, but this checkup was all clear. Yay!
Happiness-related:
I volunteered to serve on the board of my local art guild, so I HAVE to get out of the house and mingle with real people. Along with my board position, I committed to twice monthly “art days” where I paint at the art center with my artist friends.
I committed to participating in this year’s Festival of the Arts, so I must get some decent paintings done to sell in September! Yikes!
Here are a few of my recent pieces…
August
Do these covers excite you?
For work-related, I plan:
To complete a story set in my sister’s Brotherhood Protector’s world! The cover is coming soon!
To revise and compile the Danger Zone trilogy into a single bundle and get it ready for publishing in August!
To plot and chart out Hard Knox, my first We Are Dead Horse story!
To complete 5 editing projects in August!
For health related, I plan:
To restart Weight Watchers (count those points!) and hope to lose at least 5 pounds, remembering: Slow is good!
To swim at least one time a day while I can! Mid-September is when the water gets a little too nippy…
To begin some low-impact aerobics. I’ll do more housework, too, because my art room is a disaster!
For happiness-related, I plan:
To inventory the art I have and determine what I need to do next to get ready for the show!
To produce at least four finished pieces of art every week!
To blog about art (on my Emerald Casket site) just to keep myself honest! (No one actually has to read it! No one except my pal Susan does!)
Contest
Comment on anything you’ve read in this post. Tell me what you’re doing to make yourself happier and healthier. Tell me what you plan to read…
Like I said, comment on anything for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
Gabriel is available now! Book #7 of my Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT is here! At least, it’s out on Amazon in both print and ebook. In a couple of months, I’ll take it wide, meaning: I’ll publish it in all the usual places. For now, if you have Kindle Unlimited, it’s FREE.
I’m seven books into this series, and I’m still having a blast writing about bounty hunters, but, as I’ve said before, the secret has been making sure I have unique characters every time who face unique adventures/challenges. No cookie cutters. When you read a story in the series, you see the previous heroes and heroines, and I love giving them their unique voices to make them distinct. I have two more books planned already. Check out the covers for Mica and Jackson!
This story is about two former military members of the Montana Bounty Hunters, who have an initial attraction that suffers a setback, but who learn through their experiences that they have more in common than either could’ve expected.
I hope you pick up a copy. And if you have time after you’ve read it, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a review. Reviews aren’t for me, they’re for other readers who need to know about your experience with the story. I can say it’s sexy, fun, and exciting, but readers believe other readers.
Happy Reading!
~DD
Gabriel
MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS: DEAD HORSE, MT
Authentic Men… Real Adventures…
An ex-Special Forces bounty hunter has to find a way to repair his friendship with the agency’s prickly tech guru while not falling in love with her…
Gabriel Pelletier can’t read women. Hell, he didn’t know his ex-wife had been seeing another man until she cleaned out the apartment while he was deployed. Somehow, he’s managed to offend the Montana Bounty Hunters’ tech guru, and everyone around him is telling him to fix it!
Ex-Army Fredericka “Fig” Newton has always navigated working with men by repelling them before she attracts unwanted attention. She temporarily lost her mind trying to befriend Gabriel when he joined the agency. Sure, he’s cute, and while everyone around her has found their happy-ever-after, she thought, just maybe, she could find hers with him. But nope. All her friendly overtures blew up in her face. So, it’s back to prickly Fig. Besides, they have a bad guy to take down and no time for romance.
It’s Monday! I’m wide awake despite the time change. Let’s have some fun!
Have you read my Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT series yet? Well, you might want to catch up! I’ll tell you why, but first, here are the links:
Or you can find more links to other vendors selling these stories by heading to my series page and scrolling down to Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT: Series Page
Okay, with that out of the way, there are a couple of reasons you should catch up reading and soon!
#1
Besides the fact the entire series is packed full of adventure, sexy times, and humor, there’s another story coming your way…
It’s out in June, and I have to start writing it next month, so I’m not 100% sure what’s going to happen (I never do until it happens while I’m writing!). You can pre-order your copy here: Gabriel
#2
This guy…
I had been toying with an idea to branch off the bounty hunters and write some small-town stories, set in Dead Horse. Not planning or plotting. I just kept the idea in the back of my head. UNTIL, I found this photo.
And I knew who he was, where he lives, and I know who she is!!! If you read Eli, you know there’s a repair/body shop called Ride or Die. He’s the owner. And he doesn’t like the way the bounty hunters have taken over his town. They’re not Dead Horse (another line from the stories you’ll just have to read to see why it’s funny). So, I’m thinking about a series name for this offshoot project, and the only one I think fits is, “We’re Dead Horse!”
The series has some fun characters, my favorite being the persnickety waitress, Nadine, who works at the Dead Man Walk-In Diner. She’s always doing or saying something to my hunters that gets their attention, and she’s made quite the impression on some of my readers, so I thought, this girl is somehow related to Nadine. Which will make things a bit sticky and funny for this couple. She’s going to do the chasing, obviously.
So, where does the fun part come in to play for you?
Tell me about them. Suggest some names and a title of a book. Even think of something she can do to try to get his attention. Have fun with it! If you play, and comment below, you’ll be entered to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
I’m writing my stumpy fingers to the bone to get this book done! I have to load it TOMORROW! But the good news is I’m almost there! I can’t wait for you to read Cowboy and Colleen’s story next Tuesday! They’re a mess. Or at least, she is. And fun and funny! My girl’s a beautiful girl carrying some extra pounds, and Cowboy has his work cut out for him convincing her she’s the only one for him. And of course, you have the entire Dead Horse crew interfering/assisting in their romance. I’m soooo going to hate it when I run out of Dead Horse bounty hunter stories. Maybe I’ll have to write some Dead Horse resident stories after that… I think Nadine needs a man.
Anyways, happy Thursday! Wish me luck. Just a few pages more…
Contest
For a chance to win your choice of one of my Montana Bounty Hunter stories, tell me whether you’ve read any of my bounty hunter stories! If so, which was your favorite? If not, why the heck not?
An excerpt from Cowboy…
He was sleeping with the back of his head against the wall and a cowboy hat tilted over his face to shut out the overhead lights. His chair was a curved hard plastic and looked tiny in comparison to his large body. He wore jeans, very scuffed cowboy boots, and a plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows with the sleeves of a thermal shirt stretched to his wrists. The hat shouted that he probably wasn’t from around here, but the thermal shirt in mid-October sealed it.
Colleen Bradley lowered the top of her magazine just a little more to give his body a onceover, knowing she was safe because no one else was around to see her ogling the hot cowboy.
Lord have mercy, the man had muscles on his muscles, a thick chest, tapered waist, thighs like tree trunks. The beard sprouting on his cheeks and chin was dark, maybe black. She wished she could see more of his face so she’d have a reason to lose interest. No way could he be handsome as well or the world would just be too cruel.
A man like that wasn’t meant for a woman with curves too soft and rounded. He’d need a woman with stamina, while she huffed and puffed climbing the stairs up to her apartment on the second floor. Well, it didn’t hurt to look.
Until it did.
Suddenly, he straightened in his chair and tipped back his hat.
Damn, the man was fine, fine, fine.
He stood, removed his hat, and raked a hand through his short black hair.
Darn, he wasn’t bald. Did the man have any flaws? Maybe he had a high squeaky voice. Maybe he was gay—which would be disappointing, but then she’d turn her eyes elsewhere. Maybe he had a horrible temper, was a narcissist—someone as hot as he was might be entitled to think he was the moon and stars and all that…
He turned to peer into the room he sat outside of, his hands on either side of the wide doorframe, which gave her a view of his toned back and ass, and man, she had the sinking suspicion the man really was perfect.
His gaze shot sideways, toward her, and she quickly lifted her magazine to cut off the sight of him. Maybe he wouldn’t know she’d been eating him up with her gaze for a while now. How embarrassing would it be to see him smirk? And again, how disappointing. Then again, if he was a jerk, he’d be a whole lot less fascinating.
Colleen lowered the magazine to find him staring right at her.
“Was I snorin’?”
Shit, was that a southern drawl? “What?” she asked, pretending she hadn’t been watching him while he’d slept.
“You know, that magazine’s upside down.”
Her jaw dropped, and she glanced down at the magazine. It was not upside down.
“You had to look, though, didn’t ya?” A grin stretched across his handsome face, revealing two perfect dimples in his cheeks.
